Comrades! Permit me, on behalf of the Central Committee of the RCP (Bolsheviks), to declare the All-Russian Conference of our Party open.

Comrades! According to the Party statutes, a conference of this kind should be convened every 3 months, but the grave situation which we experienced several months ago in connection with the military circumstances compelled us to strain our forces so intensely and to compress all the apparatus of not only Soviet but also Party work to such a degree that, unfortunately, we were unable to fulfill the statutory resolution precisely, and the conference was postponed.

Comrades! We are now convening the conference in connection with the Congress of Soviets{116} at a moment when we have succeeded in achieving a gigantic improvement on the fronts and when we are confident that we stand on the eve of a major turning point for the better both in the international situation and in the military aspect, as well as in connection with all our internal construction. What tasks unfold before us—this has already been discussed more than once at Party meetings, in the press, and we shall speak of them when we discuss the individual, concrete items on the agenda. Therefore, I shall permit myself to proceed directly to the business at hand and propose to you the election of the conference presidium.

I ask you to indicate what proposals you have on this question.